Cartel Victim Was |Warned, Widow Testifies

FORT WORTH (CN) — An alleged Gulf Cartel attorney and U.S. informant who was murdered at a Texas shopping center lived in fear for two years after being warned twice that rivals had found him and were going to kill him, his widow testified Wednesday. Julia Tijerina de la Garza wiped away tears as she testified that her husband, Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa, was shot dead in May 2013 while getting ice cream and shopping with her at Southlake Town Center in the affluent Dallas suburb of Southlake. Tijerina was not hurt in the shooting. The gunman and getaway driver of a white SUV remain at large. Through an interpreter, Tijerina testified in the trial of cousins Jesus Gerardo Ledezma Cepeda, 59, and Jose Luis Cepeda Cortes, 59, who are accused of interstate stalking in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. Ledezma’s son, Jesus Gerardo Ledezma Campano, 32, testified last week that Beltran Leyva Cartel boss Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez, known as El Gato, ordered the hit on Guerrero because he blamed him for the death of his father. Neither man is accused of being the gunman, but of traveling from Mexico to Southlake “with the intent to kill” Chapa. Tijerina said her family was living in neighboring Grapevine when her husband received a phone call in early 2011 from an unknown person who people had found him and wanted to kill him. She said they immediately left the home and never returned, spending time with Guerrero’s sister in Grapevine before moving to Southlake. Her husband received a second phone call two years later, resulting in sporadic stays in nearby hotels, the widow testified. On the day he was killed, she said, she put a shopping bag in the back of their car, noticed a white car pull up behind them and heard an unidentified noise. She screamed when she saw her husband in the driver’s seat with blood coming out of his mouth. Ledezma testified that El Gato spent $1 million to track Guerrero through public records and GPS devices. He said that Guerrero’s sister retaliated against El Gato by sending him a video of a beheaded relative.